Video games are having a meta moment. New games aren’t just occasionally breaking the fourth wall, but directly acknowledging the influential titles that have come before them. In September alone, Astro Bot, The Plucky Squire, and UFO 50 all showcased what seems to be a unifying moment for the video game industry.. All three of those titles are fantastic in their own right, but each is also a love letter to the video game industry’s history in their own way.
To some extent, video games have always tried to replicate what was popular at the time. This moment shows that video games are no longer just chasing trends, though; they’re actively in conversation with those trends. That can be done through cameos, gameplay references, or by embracing the same game design constraints that birthed the medium’s most foundational titles. It’s a new kind of self-referential moment for video games — and I love it.
Astro Bot is the most straightforward kind of referential celebration. It’s meta in the sense that players are collecting parts of a PlayStation 5 and saving VIP Bots that are dressed like PlayStation characters from the brand’s history. It’s not just calling out the big names like God of War either; it features deeper cuts like Alundra and Motor Toon Grand Prix. This not only makes Astro Bot a great way to celebrate the PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, but it also feels like a real acknowledgment from developer Team Asobi that these games truly made PlayStation what it is today. Astro Bot owes a lot to platforming classics, so it’s gratifying to see franchises like Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper represented here.
There’s a sadder read of that, too. Some have expressed that Astro Bot can feel like a graveyard for dormant franchises, but I feel a bit more optimistic about it. Astro Bot exists today because of the PlayStation series that came before it, and Team Asobi pays tribute to that fact in a way that suits its original series at this moment.
I imagine that Astro Bot was an IP licensing nightmare for Sony, but this month has also proven that there are ample ways for video games to be meta without directly referencing specific games. The Plucky Squire, from All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital, is a prime example of that. It’s a game all about celebrating creativity and the art that inspires people, and that’s reflected in its design. Almost every kind of gameplay featured within The Plucky Squire lovingly pulls from something else.
The meat of its storybook exploration is modeled after The Legend of Zelda, while other minigames players encounter call back to Punch-Out!, Rhythm Heaven, Fantasy Zone, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and more. Although this could’ve come off as gimmicky, within the wider context of The Plucky Squire, this variety feels reflective. It’s like the developers are in direct conversation with the video games that inspired them.
UFO 50 takes that idea to its logical extreme as a collection of 50 games designed to look like they were developed in the 1980s. From the color palette to the presentation, all of the games featured in Mossmouth’s latest feel like they could have been released during the 8-bit era. UFO 50 is undeniable evidence that, right now, games aren’t afraid to directly acknowledge what came before while still looking to the future.
Games like Astro Bot, The Plucky Squire, and UFO 50 demonstrate how the video game industry is at a state of maturity. Developers can look back and celebrate past series, pull gameplay elements from the classics that influence us, or create a collection of games rooted in an older era of game design philosophy. The novelty of all of that might wear off at some point, but for now, I love that video games are embracing the history of the medium and acknowledging the foundation that propped this whole industry up.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.